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A federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down Maryland’s handgun licensing law, finding that its requirements, which include submitting fingerprints for a background check and taking a four-hour firearms safety course, are unconstitutionally restrictive.
In a 2-1 ruling, judges on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond said they considered the case in light of a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year that “effected a sea change in Second Amendment law.”
The underlying lawsuit was filed in 2016 as a challenge to a Maryland law requiring people to obtain a special license before purchasing a handgun. The law, which was passed in 2013 in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, laid out a series of necessary steps for would-be gun purchasers: completing four hours of safety training that includes firing one live round, submitting fingerprints and passing a background check, being 21 and residing in Maryland.
MAINE’S ‘YELLOW FLAG’ LAW INVOKED OVER A DOZEN TIMES SINCE LEWISTON SHOOTING SPREE
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, said he was disappointed in the circuit court’s ruling and will “continue to fight for this law.” He said his administration is reviewing the ruling and considering its options.
“Common-sense gun laws are critical to protecting all Marylanders from the gun violence that has terrorized our communities.” Moore said in a statement Tuesday. “I am determined to do more than just give thoughts and prayers and attend funerals — and that’s why this law is vital to our administration’s commitment to keeping guns out of the wrong hands and saving lives.”
The 4th Circuit opinion by Judge Julius Richardson directly references the Supreme Court decision last year that found Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense. That ruling, which also came after a series of mass shootings, ushered in a major expansion of gun rights.
It also required gun laws to fall in line with the country’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.” In this case, Richardson and Judge G. Steven Agee found no evidence of such alignment.
“If you live in Maryland and you want a handgun, you must follow a long and winding path to get one,” Richardson wrote in the opinion. “The challenged law restricts the ability of law-abiding adult citizens to possess handguns, and the state has not presented a historical analogue that justifies its restriction.”
The court also pointed to the timeline for obtaining a handgun qualification license, which could take up to 30 days.
Even though Maryland’s law doesn’t prohibit people from “owning handguns at some time in the future, it still prohibits them from owning handguns now,” Richardson wrote. “And the law’s waiting period could well be the critical time in which the applicant expects to face danger.”
But in her dissenting opinion, Judge Barbara Milano Keenan said her colleagues misapplied the Supreme Court precedent. She condemned their “hyperaggressive view of the Second Amendment.”
Instead of reversing the district court ruling that was issued before the 2022 Supreme Court decision, Keenan argued, the case should instead have been remanded to the lower court for reconsideration because “there is no legitimate reason to short-circuit the judicial process.”
Agee and Richardson were appointed by Republican presidents, while Keenan was appointed by a Democrat.
SUPREME COURT APPEARS LIKELY TO HAND BIDEN DOJ A WIN ON CHALLENGE TO GUN LAW
The Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling — its first major gun decision in more than a decade — was similarly split, with the court’s conservatives in the majority and liberals in dissent.
Mark Pennak, president of the advocacy group Maryland Shall Issue, which brought the lawsuit challenging the state licensing requirement, said he’s pleased with Tuesday’s ruling. He said it removes an unnecessary tangle of red tape.
“It’s a big win for common sense and the rule of law,” he said.
Pennak said the 2013 law made obtaining a handgun an overly expensive and arduous process. Before that law passed, he said, people had to complete a more limited training and pass a background check, among other requirements.
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Democrat Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown took action against a member of his own hate crime task force on Tuesday after numerous antisemitic social media posts by the member surfaced, including a claim that the babies murdered in the brutal Oct. 7 Hamas attack were “fake.”
Zainab Chaudry, an anti-Israel activist who serves as the director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) Maryland office, made the posts in the weeks following Hamas’ attack, which saw more than 1,200 people killed, including children and babies, as well as numerous rapes and destruction of property.
“The Office of Attorney General learned last week about personal social media posts of a member of the Maryland Commission on Hate Crimes Response and Prevention, Zainab Chaudry, Executive Director of the Council on AmericanIslamic Relations – Maryland Office,” Brown said in a press release.
“Attorney General Brown has determined that Ms. Chaudry’s social media posts risk disrupting the work and mission of the Commission, so he is announcing steps that he took today to ensure that the vital work and mission of the Commission can continue without interruption,” he said, adding that Chaudry’s membership on the commission would be “temporarily suspended.”
He went on to say that his office would “develop a draft values statement” concerning personal communications by commission members, and called on those members to “to exercise great care in their communications and conduct.”
In a Facebook post dated Oct. 26, Chadry wrote, “I will never be able to understand how the world summoned up rage for 40 fake Israeli babies while completely turning a blind eye to 3,000 real Palestinian babies.”
In an Oct. 17 post, Chaudry wrote, “[T]hat moment when you become what you hated most,” and included two photos of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, one showing it lit up with the Israeli flag in solidarity with Israel following the attack, and another from a ceremony in 1936 when it was decorated with the flag of Nazi Germany during the Olympics that year.
In another post from Nov. 6, Chaudry appeared to suggest the mere existence of Israel as a nation was the cause of the ongoing war, writing it was an “inconvenient fact.” She included an image of the words “it all started in 1948,” the year Israel was founded as a nation.
Others from the weeks following the attack showed Chaudry sharing a quote celebrating “martyred Palestinians,” and a post citing what appeared to be an Islamic prophesy that said “garrisons who defend the lands of Islam will be in Ashkelon,” an Israeli city north of the Gaza Strip.
When reached for comment, Chaudry told Fox News Digital that the “Nazi post” was originally shared “by a close Jewish friend,” before going on to accuse the Israeli government of wanting to commit genocide against Palestinians. She also said she condemned the killing of Israeli and Palestinian civilians.
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Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration said Tuesday that it is appealing a court ruling that blocked a state regulation to make Pennsylvania’s power plant owners pay for their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, even as the Democrat warned lawmakers to get to work on a better alternative.
In a statement, Shapiro didn’t pledge to enforce the regulation, should his administration win the appeal at the Democratic-majority state Supreme Court. His appeal revolves around the need to preserve executive authority, his administration said.
But he also urged lawmakers to come up with an alternative plan.
PA GOV. SHAPIRO PUSHES FOR SCHOOL VOUCHERS, MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE AND GUN VIOLENCE LEGISLATION
“Now is the time for action,” Shapiro’s office said. “Inaction is not an acceptable alternative.”
Action seemed unlikely, however, as Republicans who control the state Senate criticized Shapiro’s decision to appeal and said it would hamper any meaningful discussion of energy and environmental policy.
Environmental advocacy groups applauded the appeal.
The case revolves around the centerpiece of former Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to fight global warming and make Pennsylvania the first major fossil fuel-producing state to adopt a carbon-pricing program.
In a Nov. 1 decision, a 4-1 Commonwealth Court majority agreed with Republican lawmakers and coal-related interests that argued that Wolf’s carbon-pricing plan amounted to a tax, and therefore required legislative approval.
Wolf, a Democrat, had sought to get around legislative opposition by unconstitutionally imposing the requirement through a regulation, opponents said.
The regulation had authorized Pennsylvania to join the multistate Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which imposes a price and declining cap on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
Shapiro has criticized it, but also has not said definitively whether he would enforce it, should he prevail in court. Shapiro’s message to lawmakers Tuesday also did not describe the need to fight climate change.
Rather, he couched the matter in different terms, calling it “commonsense energy policy” and said he would sign another carbon-pricing plan, should it win legislative approval.
“Should legislative leaders choose to engage in constructive dialogue, the governor is confident we can agree on a stronger alternative to RGGI,” Shapiro’s office said in the statement. “If they take their ball and go home, they will be making a choice not to advance commonsense energy policy that protects jobs, the environment and consumers in Pennsylvania.”
Such a plan continues to have no chance of passing the state Legislature, where the Republican-controlled Senate has been protective of hometown coal and natural gas industries in the nation’s No. 2 gas state.
Republican lawmakers had hailed the court’s decision to block the regulation and had urged Shapiro not to appeal it.
Rather, Republicans have pushed to open greater opportunities for energy production in the state and warned that the regulation will raise electricity bills, hurt in-state energy producers and drive new power generation to other states while doing little to fight climate change.
In a statement, Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, a Republican from Indiana County, called the appeal “misguided.”
“Gov. Shapiro’s action further places family sustaining jobs at risk and stymies the ability for any meaningful conversations on energy and environmental policy in the Pennsylvania legislature,” Pittman said. “The governor should be standing with working families who are struggling with inflationary costs and pressures from higher electric bills.”
PA GOV. SHAPIRO SIGNS OFF ON BILL EXPANDING DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENTS FOR STATE-FUNDED UNIVERSITIES
In the House, where Democrats hold a one-seat majority, neither a carbon-pricing plan, nor Shapiro’s most well-defined clean-energy goal — a pledge to ensure that Pennsylvania uses 30% of its electricity from renewable power sources by 2030 — have come up for a vote.
Backers of the regulation included environmental advocates as well as solar, wind and nuclear power producers.
They have called it the biggest step ever taken in Pennsylvania to fight climate change and said it would have generated hundreds of millions of dollars a year to promote climate-friendly energy sources and cut electricity bills through energy conservation programs.
Opponents included natural gas-related interests, industrial and commercial power users and labor unions whose members build and maintain pipelines, power plants and refineries.
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NEW YORK — For more than a year, Mayor Eric Adams has been demanding financial support from the federal government to pay for migrants in the city’s care.
A federal investigation into the mayor’s fundraising — unrelated to the crisis of housing migrants — hasn’t changed his attacks on the White House and Congress.
In fact, it has served as a way for Adams to continue to show he’s in control of the city and fighting, even with President Joe Biden, for its needs as scandal swirls around him.
“We’re not trying to negotiate with Washington. We’re trying to say that 140,000 people — three to four thousand [a week] — are coming here. There is a cost,” Adams said at a wide ranging City Hall press briefing Tuesday.
Adams confirmed plans to ask nearly all city agencies to make further 5 percent spending cuts to their budgets before he releases his preliminary city budget in January. And he’s planning to cut spending on housing and serving migrants by 20 percent.
Last week, Adams released his November financial plan, which included 5 percent cuts to agency spending totaling nearly $4 billion over two years — which includes cuts to garbage collection, new police recruits and library hours.
The cuts are necessary, in part, because the city projects spending nearly $11 billion on migrants over this fiscal year and the next, Adams has said.
The federal government has barely given New York City any money to cover the new costs, and Adams is quick to point the finger — turning the angst facing him and his administration onto those in Washington.
Cuts include a $60 million reduction to the school food program, which Adams suggested Tuesday would hurt his healthy eating initiative.
“That’s how painful this is. The initiative that we put in place to improve the lives of everyday, working class people, is being impacted right now,” he said. “And D.C. needs to do its job.”
That echoed his comments at a town hall in Brooklyn Monday night. “D.C. has abandoned us, and they need to be paying their cost to this national problem,” he said. If you have a problem, “Don’t yell at me, yell at D.C. We deserve better as a city.”
The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.
City budget cuts are not leverage in his tough talk to federal officials, Adams said. It’s a reflection of the costs of trying to house more than 50,000 migrants.
Adams has been calling for federal funding for more than a year, dating back to summer 2022, when the increase in homeless asylum-seekers coming to the city was first acknowledged.
He’s also called for a “decompression strategy,” hoping the federal government would divert migrants away from the city. It has created a growing rift with the White House — Biden and Adams haven’t talked in nearly a year, and Biden didn’t meet with him in his latest visit to the city.
But it makes sense that Adams would want to divert blame — and perhaps talk about policy rather than his own political troubles.
The FBI briefly temporarily seized his electronic devices earlier this month as part of an investigation into the Turkish government’s influence in local politics.
Adams and nobody else has been charged, and his chief counsel said she had no reason to believe Adams was the target of an investigation.
But amid that news, Adams’ approval rating is sagging. Only 37 percent of New York City voters approved of the job Adams is doing, while 56 percent disapproved, according to a Marist poll released Tuesday.
Adams is keeping his focus on Washington amid all the troubles swirling around him — despite it dogging him wherever he goes.
Earlier this month, he ditched a White House meeting to ask for federal migrant funding when his campaign fundraiser’s home was raided by the FBI. But Adams said Tuesday he’s scheduling another trip to the capital with clergy members.
“I’m looking forward to getting to D.C.,” he said, “to have a real conversation around the impact of the migrant crisis on our city.”
New York’s leaders in Congress, meanwhile, have taken a muted approach on migrant funding for the city.
And Adams is pressing them too — saying again Tuesday he wants his fellow elected officials to push for federal funding as much as he is.
City Comptroller Brad Lander and leadership of the City Council have accused Adams of using misleading budget practices, deliberately underestimating revenue while overestimating spending on migrants to present a more dire fiscal situation than reality.
Adams ripped them, calling for message discipline.
“If one wants to dispute that you should pay $300 [per day for shelter] instead of $315, OK let’s do that argument. But to constantly send out the signal that this is not impacting our city, I just think is wrong,” Adams said.
“And when you have elected officials looking for political points, instead of making the point that New York City tax dollars should not be going to paying for a national problem? Every conversation should start with that from my elected officials.”
Go to Source: Politico
Voters in Utah are heading to the polls Tuesday for a special election to determine which party will fill the last remaining open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The election, to be held in Utah’s 2nd Congressional District, was triggered by the resignation of former Republican Rep. Chris Stewart, who left Congress in September due to his wife’s unspecified illness.
Republican Celeste Maloy, who served as Stewart’s chief legal counsel in Congress, won a three-way primary election that month, and is facing off against Democrat state Sen. Kathleen Riebe, a self-described moderate.
As a candidate, Maloy has touted her roots growing up in rural southern Utah, of which the district covers a vast portion, and has leaned into her support of former President Donald Trump, arguing the numerous ongoing prosecutions against him are politically motivated.
“It’s exciting that we’re going to have somebody come out of this primary that represents rural and southern Utah. I think it’s time for that, and everybody’s ready for it,” Maloy said following her primary win.
However, Riebe has argued the race is a pickup opportunity for Democrats, and has leaned on her experience as a school teacher while making the case that people in the district “are ready for a change.”
TRUMP TO REMAIN ON COLORADO BALLOT AFTER JUDGE REJECTS 14TH AMENDMENT CHALLENGE TO ELIGIBILITY
In an interview with Deseret News in August, Riebe expressed concern over the nation’s rising debt, and vowed to join the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition if elected.
“Coming to a very rational decision and having very moderate ideas, I think that is what serves us best,” she told the outlet.
Maloy is currently the heavy favorite to win the special election given Stewart’s double-digit margin of victory in the six elections he was the Republican nominee for the district, going back to 2012.
A Democrat win would weaken Republicans’ already slim majority, while a win for the GOP would provide some extra cushion for close votes.
Polls close at 8:00 p.m. local time, and 10:00 p.m. ET.
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Some Biden administration officials quietly say the near-complete hostage agreement is the clearest signal yet its strategy toward the Israel-Hamas war is working.
In the potential breakthrough, 50 women and children could be released by Hamas in exchange for 150 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. A four- to five-day pause would allow them a safer transfer and ease the delivery of life-saving aid to suffering Palestinians in Gaza. Amid so much wreckage and chaos, the hostage deal — which could be finalized as soon as Tuesday — might prove a rare bright spot in a dark time.
Three U.S. administration officials said there’s no explicit victory lap to take as around 200 hostages will stay behind in Hamas’ grasp. And it would be uncouth to celebrate any win after Hamas killed 1,200 people on Oct. 7, leading Israel to forcefully respond with a military campaign that Hamas-led health ministries claim killed more than 13,000 people.
But all suggested President Joe Biden shouldn’t shy away from what the policy has accomplished to date. “It’s vindication,” said one of the officials, “but there’s more to do.”
Increasing demands from progressive-minded Democrats for a cease-fire and an end to support for Israel’s retaliation fell on deaf ears in the White House. Biden and his team repeated, again and again, that the only way to make meaningful humanitarian progress was a hostage deal to cool passions and temporarily stop bombs from falling throughout the enclave.
To reach such a moment, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who already faced immense pressure from hostage families and a restless nation, could only be nudged with hugs in public and quiet cajoling.
The deal may still fall apart, with U.S. officials insisting nothing is really final until it is formally announced, the hostages are brought home and the guns go silent. Still, on the verge of the administration’s biggest diplomatic victory of the conflict, questions are swirling internally about how much credit Biden’s approach deserves.
Another three administration officials, including one senior official during an on-record interview, said that working to secure the release of hostages, and pause the fighting for four or five days, was simply necessary as Israel’s retaliation against Hamas for the Oct. 7 attack has devastated Gaza and sparked a humanitarian crisis.
“It’s not a question of vindication of strategy,” said David Satterfield, the U.S. lead on humanitarian issues in the Israel-Gaza war during a live Tuesday interview with al-Monitor. “It is the right and necessary thing to do.”
All the officials were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal discussions and the state of negotiations. On Tuesday morning, Biden said “nothing is done until it’s done,” adding that he’d spoken recently to Netanyahu as well as the emir of Qatar. “But things are looking good at the moment.”
The hostage talks have been complicated at times by the sheer range of parties involved — including Israel, Hamas, Qatar and the U.S. — as well as various outside groups that tapped their own diplomatic channels, said one former U.S. official familiar with the discussions. The large number of hostages, who range in nationality and age and in some cases had pressing medical needs, added another tricky variable to the mix.
“Hostage negotiations are always challenging,” the former official said. “But this one has been very complex.”
The Biden administration insists that Israel has an obligation to defend itself but should minimize civilian harm in the process. Over recent weeks, the U.S. worked to get 100 aid trucks a day into Gaza from Egypt and is in touch with humanitarian groups on how to further alleviate the suffering of Palestinians in the enclave.
But the administration remains wary about Netanyahu’s endgame and seeming lack of a plan for what to do once Hamas is defeated. There was no sense that the pause would turn into a lengthier cease-fire, a senior administration official said. And there was some concern in the administration about an unintended consequence of the pause: that it would allow journalists broader access to Gaza and the opportunity to further illuminate the devastation there and turn public opinion on Israel.
Israel is unlikely to ramp down its military operation in Gaza when the temporary pause ends, experts say. Israeli officials have vowed to continue the offensive until it destroys Hamas, arguing in some cases that the campaign from the enclave’s north to the south helped the hostage negotiations by making a halt more attractive.
“There is no indication on the Israeli side that they think this actually changes what they need to do on the military side,” said Ivo Daalder, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Daalder, who is close to senior administration officials, added that the White House remains “deeply, deeply worried” about Israel’s longer-term strategy and what the next phase of the war may look like, making the next few days critical for the U.S. to ramp up pressure on Netanyahu to think through his approach.
“The administration has judged that supporting Israel post-Oct.7 was a necessary ingredient of having influence on Israel,” said Daalder. “It doesn’t mean that influence has been total … but had they not done that, they would’ve had no influence. And in some ways that remains very much the focus of their strategy.”
Back home, Biden has resisted calls from his own party to endorse a cease-fire and condition for military aid for Israel, even though his stance is hemorrhaging support from younger voters heading into the 2024 presidential election.
A Democratic aide in the House said that, depending on the circumstances of the deal, progressives would leverage the moment to push Biden toward backing longer pauses in fighting. “If there are no bombings for five days, the goal would be to turn that temporary respite into a longer-lasting cessation” to deal with humanitarian issues, the staffer said.
Shibley Telhami, a University of Maryland professor who held conversations with Senate Democrats on conditioning support to Israel, said all parties needed the deal right now, “including the Biden administration, which has come under increasing pressure not only globally, but also among Democrats who fear Biden is taking them for granted.”
“A pause and prisoner exchange is welcome of course, but whether or not it will be an opportunity for the parties to reconsider the disastrous path they have been on remains to be seen,” he said.
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